patrick.net

The 2016 election was a shock to this new regime. Polls and poll analysts expected a Hillary Clinton victory, and instead Donald Trump won. Amid a popular backlash, the poll clique—pollsters and analysts alike—defended their results and blamed the public for not understanding polling or probabilities. They pointed out that the popular vote had closely tracked national polling on Clinton versus Trump, and while state polls were very consequentially wrong, many were not wrong by all that much.

Some observers, including me, more or less bought that defense. Pollsters closely examined their methods and promised to try to fix problems in 2020, though they noted that polls are never perfect. ...

Expect two lines of defense. First, many pollsters insist that their polls are snapshots, not predictors (and bridle at people such as Silver, Nate Cohn of the Times, and G. Elliott Morris of The Economist using them to create forecasts). If their snapshots are so far off, though, where were they aiming the lens? Why bother? Second, the analysts will protest that they’re only as good as the polls, but who cares? Whatever the instructions on the bottle, the public uses opinion polls to try to understand what happens. If the polls and their analysts don’t offer the service that customers are seeking, they’re doomed.